Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Words Fail Me

The leadership of many countries in the world are rarely short of an opinion on how other countries should run their affairs. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong and sometimes it's none of their business.

When you read something like this where a country seems to think that 50% of its population is not worthy of an equal education then you have to question the merit in anything they have to say.

On 20 August 2012, an announcement was made by Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and Technology that 36 universities in Iran
would be cutting 77 fields of study from the female curriculum, making
them male-only fields. The fields chosen include most sciences and
engineering, among others. The curriculum change is to begin being
implemented for the 2013 school year and the fields of study limitations
for women have been added to the university "leaflets".[7] Universities like the Oil Industry University have completely barred women from attending, citing the "lack of employer demand".[8]

The announcement came soon after the release of statistics showing
that women were graduating in far higher numbers than men from Iranian
universities and were scoring overall better than men, especially in the
sciences

This reasoning was echoed by Isfahan University, which stated that from those that obtained mining engineering degrees "98% of female graduates ended up jobless."[9] The disciplines related to agriculture were also regarded as "unfit" for female students.[8]
Therefore, as a consequence of this move, women will not become
engineers, nuclear physicists, archaeologists, business graduates and
computer scientists in Iran.[8] Additionally, they are also banned from attending the departments of English literature, translation and hotel management.[8]
The second paragraph is perhaps the most telling and only illustrates that some men appear to feel genuinely intimidated by the prospect of educated women taking an active role in their society. Sufficiently intimidated that they're prepared to actively sabotage their country's prospects for intellectual advancement. The arguments presented in favour of this policy are so simplistic and ill-conceived they do not even merit discussion.